Fredrik Ullen - Kaikhosru Sorabji: 100 Transcendental Studies, Nos. 84-100

By far the largest collection of concert �tudes in the known repertoire, Kaikhosru Sorabji�s set of 100 Transcendental Studies, composed between 1940 and 1944, has a total duration of more than eight hours. On five previous recordings, the Swedish pianist (and neuroscientist) Fredrik Ull�n has introduced the first 83 �tudes to a wider audience, the large majority of them appearing on disc for the first time. Now, 15 years after the release of the first volume comes the final instalment, a 2-disc set with the last 17 studies. In his own liner notes, Ull�n describes the experience of learning and recording the collection: �From the F sharp minor of Study 1 to the F sharp minor chord concluding Study 100: traversing Sorabji�s Transcendental Studies has been somewhat like joining a comet following a long eccentric orbit through pianistic outer space, and finally returning back to mother earth.� Most of the studies are typical concert �tudes in the sense that they essentially explore a single technical or structural idea. But especially towards the end of the cycle Sorabji includes pieces that are on a much larger scale, a tendency that culminates with the two final �tudes. Besides the programme notes by Fredrik Ull�n, the CD booklet includes texts by Kenneth Derus and Alistair Hinton who both knew the composer.